Fic - BSG - One for the Road
I'm an idiot. This was supposed to be for sf_friday48's challenge this week, but for some reason, I had it in my head that entries were due today, rather than yesterday. I suck a lot, but as it was half written already, I figured I'd finish. Anyway. Not my favorite piece, but it needed to escape my system.
Title: One for the Road
Rating: PG-13 for the naughty words
Spoilers: The miniseries. And Lee backstory from "Final Cut" and podcast.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish he was they were. A few lines are paraphrased from the miniseries and are also not mine.
Summary: What if Lee had gone ahead and left the military to venture into a different kind of service? AU, set just before the events of the miniseries, with some adjusting of timeline. Angstcakes. Also, Kara. Oh, and a towel, but not as special as the "Final Cut" one.
The discarded cigar burns out on its ashtray, the smoke curling lazily upward to diffuse in the air. There’s a pattern it makes - once upon a time, he knew the name for it, but now his mind is full of orders and maintenance and accounting, and the little details of trivia he once knew have slipped away.
Lee shakes his head, breaking his gaze with the ashtray on the counter, and looks up to survey his domain. The bar and restaurant is deserted now, so he switches the television hanging from the ceiling from the sports channel to news, raising the volume a notch, and ducks down behind the counter to sort the collection of used dishes for washing. Above the newscaster’s drone, he hears the tinkling bell that announces a customer’s arrival. “Be with you in a minute,” he calls, his armful of glasses taking precedence.
Footsteps approach the bar. “What can I get you today?” he continues.
“Libran ale. As long you’re not stocking that crap you like, that is.”
Lee freezes. When he rises slowly to his feet, she’s grinning across the counter at him. “Kara.”
“Lee,” she returns. “Long time, no see, huh?”
He breaks into a smile. “Hell of one, yeah. How - I mean - ”
“How am I, or how’d I find you?” Her smirk hasn’t changed.
“How about both?”
“Good, and by asking a lot of people. You sure made yourself hard to track down, Apollo,” she comments, raising her eyebrows.
“Not on purpose.” He takes a step back and turns to get her drink. “Here you go, and yes, it’s your brand.” Because she’s right, it really does taste better, but he’ll never admit it. He pops the cap off with practiced hands.
“Thanks. On the house, right?” She winks and perches on a barstool.
He rolls his eyes. “Sure, Kara. But just the one. Aren’t you on duty or something?”
“Nope. I am taking advantage of well-earned leave time to look up an old friend who’s dropped off the face of the planet. Or onto its face, I guess.”
“Lucky me,” he says wryly.
“Damn right. I turned down free pyramid tickets to come find you.” Her gaze drifts to the television, which would normally be showing said pyramid game, but now features an impossibly-coiffed pair of news jockeys affecting humor at some scripted joke. “Nice place you got here, by the way.”
“Well, after all the dives you’ve dragged me into over the years, I figured I’d learned a thing or two about how to run one of my own.”
She pauses mid-drink to snort with laughter. “Oh, so that’s why you left your fast tracked military career, because you wanted to put my teachings into practice? Frak, Apollo, if that’s all you needed, I could’ve shown you a few more tricks in a Viper.”
He pulls a clean rag from his apron and starts wiping down the counter between them. “It’s just Lee now, Kara. I’m not a pilot anymore.”
“Uh huh,” she says skeptically. “So how’s civilian life treating you?”
He shrugs. “Not bad. It’s quiet.”
“I can see that,” she says, looking pointedly around the otherwise-deserted bar.
“I’ll have you know the lunch rush just ended,” he protests.
“Sure it did, Apollo.”
His fist clenches around the towel. “That’s not who I am anymore.”
“Oh, frak that.” Her bottle slams down on the dark wood. A few drops escape, landing on the counter, and he glares at her as she continues. “You were about to make Captain, Lee. You were the best pilot in the fleet next to me-”
“Modest as always.”
“-and what the frak was the point of going to War College and being so damn good at what you did if you were just going to throw it away?”
“I’m not like you, Kara. I didn’t want to be in the military. It was just a way to pay for school,” he explains, wiping the water ring when she lifts her bottle again and slapping down a coaster in its place. “And something to do until I figured out what I really wanted to do with my life.”
“And that was to open a bar called ‘One for the Road.’”
“I didn’t want to be a part of it. That’s all. I just wanted…”
“What?” she snaps.
“A normal life? I don’t know, friends I don’t have to salute to or worry about accidentally shooting in drill runs? Kara, you know I was never cut out for that.”
“You sure as hell aren’t cut out for this, either.”
“I like this.”
”Right. Gods, Lee, this isn’t you. You’re not supposed to be lost in some dingy suburb, serving shitty drinks to people who don’t give a frak. You should be - I don’t know, something important. Pilot or politician or professor, whatever, but not nobody.”
“Well, things don’t always turn out like they’re supposed to, do they.” It’s not a question. He turns away to grab the cleanser, not because the counter is particularly dirty.
“Nope.”
He sighs. “Come on, you and I both know what this is about.” He stares at her, but she’s turned on that infuriating blank expression that he could never break through, and he caves. “Let’s just forget it, all right? I haven’t seen you in two years, Kara. What’s new?”
She shrugs. “Flying, fighting, triad. Same old, same old.”
“Still reaching for that brig record?”
She gives a tight smile. “Should break it before the new year.”
“You never change, do you?”
“Not like you.”
Okay, so she’s not going to drop it. “Kara…”
“No, Lee, I’m not going to shut up. You love flying, it’s in your frakking blood. If you gave it up for something you really cared about, fine, but for this hole in the wall?” She gestures around the room, and he hates himself a little bit for worrying about the bottle spilling.
“I thought you said you liked it!” he exclaims instead.
She rolls her eyes and sets the bottle safely down on the coaster. “I was being polite.”
“First time for everything,” he grumbles. She doesn’t reply, pulling out a cigar and lighting up. Her eyes drift towards the television; he works steadily at the counter.
A minute or so goes by, and he’s just thinking of taking the dishes to the back when she says, “He misses you, you know.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t go there, Kara.”
“You’ve heard about the decommissioning?” she continues as if he hadn’t spoken. He grunts in response. Of course he’s heard. It’s a footnote on the nightly news - the last of the old-school battlestars being laid to rest, the Galactica to be converted into a museum, its old-fashioned commander preparing for retirement - the end of an era already gone, as far as he’s concerned.
“Next week. Government officials, press, and everything.”
“I’m sure you’ll get your first pick of new postings.”
“Frak you, Apollo.”
“Don’t call me that,” he repeats in a tired refrain.
“It would mean the world to the old man if you were there.” She’s holding the cigar off to the side now, half-empty drink forgotten, staring daggers at him.
“Right.” He snorts. “In case you’ve forgotten, neither of us wants anything to do with the other.”
“Like hell, you do. You wanted a normal life, Lee? Picket fence, dog, family? You’ve got one, him and me, up there.”
“You don’t know anything about it, Kara.” He throws the dirty rag in the washtub and plants his hands on the counter top. “I can’t even think of him without seeing-” He falters.
“And what was he to me, nothing?” She’s not yelling now, but still meets him with a challenging glare. “You can look at me just fine.”
He shakes his head. “You aren’t the reason it happened.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She takes a big swallow of the ale.
“What?” He’s frozen, glued to the ground and the counter and her face.
When she sets the bottle down again, the fight has left her and her whole body slackens. She raises her eyes to his with a weak and unhappy smile. “Zak should never have passed basic flight. But he did, because I was his instructor and I wanted him to. He’s dead because of me, Lee, and if blaming your father for it is the only reason you won’t go see him, then you shouldn’t, because it wasn’t his fault. I’m the one you shouldn’t be able to look at.”
Lee can’t move. He doesn’t hear the tap’s slow drip, doesn’t hear the noise from the screen, doesn’t hear the silence, only the pounding in his head. Somewhere in his periphery, the smoke is curling up from her cigar, there’s a pile of unwashed dishes, and somebody left the cap off the ketchup at table three. He only sees her face laid bare before him.
When the television switches to static and snow, they look up.
When the light outside flashes bright and blinding, he looks at her -
- and sees -
Title: One for the Road
Rating: PG-13 for the naughty words
Spoilers: The miniseries. And Lee backstory from "Final Cut" and podcast.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish he was they were. A few lines are paraphrased from the miniseries and are also not mine.
Summary: What if Lee had gone ahead and left the military to venture into a different kind of service? AU, set just before the events of the miniseries, with some adjusting of timeline. Angstcakes. Also, Kara. Oh, and a towel, but not as special as the "Final Cut" one.
The discarded cigar burns out on its ashtray, the smoke curling lazily upward to diffuse in the air. There’s a pattern it makes - once upon a time, he knew the name for it, but now his mind is full of orders and maintenance and accounting, and the little details of trivia he once knew have slipped away.
Lee shakes his head, breaking his gaze with the ashtray on the counter, and looks up to survey his domain. The bar and restaurant is deserted now, so he switches the television hanging from the ceiling from the sports channel to news, raising the volume a notch, and ducks down behind the counter to sort the collection of used dishes for washing. Above the newscaster’s drone, he hears the tinkling bell that announces a customer’s arrival. “Be with you in a minute,” he calls, his armful of glasses taking precedence.
Footsteps approach the bar. “What can I get you today?” he continues.
“Libran ale. As long you’re not stocking that crap you like, that is.”
Lee freezes. When he rises slowly to his feet, she’s grinning across the counter at him. “Kara.”
“Lee,” she returns. “Long time, no see, huh?”
He breaks into a smile. “Hell of one, yeah. How - I mean - ”
“How am I, or how’d I find you?” Her smirk hasn’t changed.
“How about both?”
“Good, and by asking a lot of people. You sure made yourself hard to track down, Apollo,” she comments, raising her eyebrows.
“Not on purpose.” He takes a step back and turns to get her drink. “Here you go, and yes, it’s your brand.” Because she’s right, it really does taste better, but he’ll never admit it. He pops the cap off with practiced hands.
“Thanks. On the house, right?” She winks and perches on a barstool.
He rolls his eyes. “Sure, Kara. But just the one. Aren’t you on duty or something?”
“Nope. I am taking advantage of well-earned leave time to look up an old friend who’s dropped off the face of the planet. Or onto its face, I guess.”
“Lucky me,” he says wryly.
“Damn right. I turned down free pyramid tickets to come find you.” Her gaze drifts to the television, which would normally be showing said pyramid game, but now features an impossibly-coiffed pair of news jockeys affecting humor at some scripted joke. “Nice place you got here, by the way.”
“Well, after all the dives you’ve dragged me into over the years, I figured I’d learned a thing or two about how to run one of my own.”
She pauses mid-drink to snort with laughter. “Oh, so that’s why you left your fast tracked military career, because you wanted to put my teachings into practice? Frak, Apollo, if that’s all you needed, I could’ve shown you a few more tricks in a Viper.”
He pulls a clean rag from his apron and starts wiping down the counter between them. “It’s just Lee now, Kara. I’m not a pilot anymore.”
“Uh huh,” she says skeptically. “So how’s civilian life treating you?”
He shrugs. “Not bad. It’s quiet.”
“I can see that,” she says, looking pointedly around the otherwise-deserted bar.
“I’ll have you know the lunch rush just ended,” he protests.
“Sure it did, Apollo.”
His fist clenches around the towel. “That’s not who I am anymore.”
“Oh, frak that.” Her bottle slams down on the dark wood. A few drops escape, landing on the counter, and he glares at her as she continues. “You were about to make Captain, Lee. You were the best pilot in the fleet next to me-”
“Modest as always.”
“-and what the frak was the point of going to War College and being so damn good at what you did if you were just going to throw it away?”
“I’m not like you, Kara. I didn’t want to be in the military. It was just a way to pay for school,” he explains, wiping the water ring when she lifts her bottle again and slapping down a coaster in its place. “And something to do until I figured out what I really wanted to do with my life.”
“And that was to open a bar called ‘One for the Road.’”
“I didn’t want to be a part of it. That’s all. I just wanted…”
“What?” she snaps.
“A normal life? I don’t know, friends I don’t have to salute to or worry about accidentally shooting in drill runs? Kara, you know I was never cut out for that.”
“You sure as hell aren’t cut out for this, either.”
“I like this.”
”Right. Gods, Lee, this isn’t you. You’re not supposed to be lost in some dingy suburb, serving shitty drinks to people who don’t give a frak. You should be - I don’t know, something important. Pilot or politician or professor, whatever, but not nobody.”
“Well, things don’t always turn out like they’re supposed to, do they.” It’s not a question. He turns away to grab the cleanser, not because the counter is particularly dirty.
“Nope.”
He sighs. “Come on, you and I both know what this is about.” He stares at her, but she’s turned on that infuriating blank expression that he could never break through, and he caves. “Let’s just forget it, all right? I haven’t seen you in two years, Kara. What’s new?”
She shrugs. “Flying, fighting, triad. Same old, same old.”
“Still reaching for that brig record?”
She gives a tight smile. “Should break it before the new year.”
“You never change, do you?”
“Not like you.”
Okay, so she’s not going to drop it. “Kara…”
“No, Lee, I’m not going to shut up. You love flying, it’s in your frakking blood. If you gave it up for something you really cared about, fine, but for this hole in the wall?” She gestures around the room, and he hates himself a little bit for worrying about the bottle spilling.
“I thought you said you liked it!” he exclaims instead.
She rolls her eyes and sets the bottle safely down on the coaster. “I was being polite.”
“First time for everything,” he grumbles. She doesn’t reply, pulling out a cigar and lighting up. Her eyes drift towards the television; he works steadily at the counter.
A minute or so goes by, and he’s just thinking of taking the dishes to the back when she says, “He misses you, you know.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t go there, Kara.”
“You’ve heard about the decommissioning?” she continues as if he hadn’t spoken. He grunts in response. Of course he’s heard. It’s a footnote on the nightly news - the last of the old-school battlestars being laid to rest, the Galactica to be converted into a museum, its old-fashioned commander preparing for retirement - the end of an era already gone, as far as he’s concerned.
“Next week. Government officials, press, and everything.”
“I’m sure you’ll get your first pick of new postings.”
“Frak you, Apollo.”
“Don’t call me that,” he repeats in a tired refrain.
“It would mean the world to the old man if you were there.” She’s holding the cigar off to the side now, half-empty drink forgotten, staring daggers at him.
“Right.” He snorts. “In case you’ve forgotten, neither of us wants anything to do with the other.”
“Like hell, you do. You wanted a normal life, Lee? Picket fence, dog, family? You’ve got one, him and me, up there.”
“You don’t know anything about it, Kara.” He throws the dirty rag in the washtub and plants his hands on the counter top. “I can’t even think of him without seeing-” He falters.
“And what was he to me, nothing?” She’s not yelling now, but still meets him with a challenging glare. “You can look at me just fine.”
He shakes his head. “You aren’t the reason it happened.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She takes a big swallow of the ale.
“What?” He’s frozen, glued to the ground and the counter and her face.
When she sets the bottle down again, the fight has left her and her whole body slackens. She raises her eyes to his with a weak and unhappy smile. “Zak should never have passed basic flight. But he did, because I was his instructor and I wanted him to. He’s dead because of me, Lee, and if blaming your father for it is the only reason you won’t go see him, then you shouldn’t, because it wasn’t his fault. I’m the one you shouldn’t be able to look at.”
Lee can’t move. He doesn’t hear the tap’s slow drip, doesn’t hear the noise from the screen, doesn’t hear the silence, only the pounding in his head. Somewhere in his periphery, the smoke is curling up from her cigar, there’s a pile of unwashed dishes, and somebody left the cap off the ketchup at table three. He only sees her face laid bare before him.
When the television switches to static and snow, they look up.
When the light outside flashes bright and blinding, he looks at her -
- and sees -